


girls that look just like you

by Merit



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Time Travel, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 14:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13125393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/pseuds/Merit
Summary: “I'm a time traveller,” Lesley said.





	girls that look just like you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Melody_Jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melody_Jade/gifts).



In the pre-dawn light of the third of April, Peter vanished with a Lesley. He turned, the whites of his eyes bright, his mouth wide open, as one of the Lesleys grabbed his hand and yanked him through a sharp line in the mist. The air shifted, the trees pulled back, the sun pausing before tentatively rising over the horizon, rays shifting over the undulating hills.

Thomas reached out, hand in a half formed fist and the sheer absence of Peter caused Thomas to recoil. It was like he was _dead_. And the words reverberated like cannon fire in his head.

He turned on the other Lesley, fire and destruction a bare moment away. She had moved into a defensive stance.

“We don't have to do this, you know,” she said, face still. There was a livid red scar bisecting her left eye. The left eye was a startling shade of blue, mismatched like a harlequin doll. Thomas raised his hand. “Not this time.”

He paused. She still hadn't moved. “This time?”

Lesley smiled slowly.

 

“I'm a time traveller,” Lesley said over a cup of tea, cutting short his questions. Her fingers, long and the nails smooth ovals, wrapped around the ceramic. She raised the cup to her face, steam brushing over the face, and breathed in deeply. She turned her focus to him. “You're taking it better than than Lesley.”

“Yourself,” Thomas said.

Lesley wrinkled her nose, the scar stretching obscenely over her face. There were fine lines across her forehead, cobwebs creeping out of her eyes.

“Me and not me,” she said. She shrugged. “There's no elegant explanation. I am merely a version of Lesley where there were different circumstances and different choices.”

“Your face is still whole,” he said.

She smiled. “Lesley said that too,” she said gently. “She asked about the eye,” she said, hand fluttering up the eye, the unnatural colour casting a strange light on her skin.

Thomas shook himself and added two sugars to his tea. “What choices and circumstances?”

“I could tell you,” Lesley said slowly, “But we have a limited amount of time to rescue Peter and the other Lesley. Also it might break a space-time continuum,” she shrugged. “Kind of new at this.”

“What do we need to do?” Thomas asked, hand clenching at his side. Lesley took a painfully slow sip of her tea. She was missing the tips on the last two fingers of her left hand, he noted. And her scarf was wrapped very tightly around her neck. Despite the bustle of the cafe, the people and their perfumes rushing to and fro, there was a stale odour that lingered around her.

“It isn't that easy,” Lesley said. “This isn't my time line. I don't know what Lesley is thinking.”

“She opened up a portal to a different time and space,” Thomas said, tapping his fingers against the table. “What would you be thinking?”

“I'm very different from this Lesley,” Lesley said, smiling sadly. She ducked her head, the light catching on the silver there, her expression growing pensive. “But if I was going to do that – I would have hopefully gone there before. Scoped out the terrain. The individuals there.”

“Someone would have noticed you,” Thomas said.

“In our world someone is usually watching,” Lesley said. “They seldom comment though.”

 

The other Lesley was stronger. Older. When she moved, her left leg dragged slightly. Her eyes prowled her surroundings, constantly looking for a threat.

Thomas stayed near the edge of the room, just to the side of her blind spot.

Beverley sized up the other Lesley and was instantly on edge. She sidled over to Thomas, hair pulled back, droplets of Thames river water sliding down her neck.

“She feels wrong,” she said in a low voice, stepping closer, away from Lesley.

“She will be gone once we bring Peter and Lesley back,” Thomas said.

“She promised you that?” Beverley said.

“No,” Thomas said. “But she will be leaving, whether she likes it or not.”

Beverley considered him for a moment before nodding shortly and sharply. “London will be on tenterhooks until she leaves,” she murmured. “Every time I look at her the air around her shifts and moves. She shifts and moves, as if drawings of Lesley have been stacked upon one another.”

Lesley looked over to them. Her fingers were covered with muck from the Thames, daisies scattered, rosemary curling around the edges of the vast copper pan.

“She's going to attract the worst types.”

“As long as she brings back Peter,” Thomas said.

“Peter and Lesley?” Beverley said archly.

Thomas shrugged his shoulders, smiling lightly, while he watched Lesley work. “And what do your sources says?”

Beverley twisted her mouth. “This can't get out,” Beverley said. “They already think I'm too close to the Folly,” to _Peter_ they both thought.

“I have kept a few secrets over the years,” Thomas said. “And these are extreme circumstances.”

“There are places where humans aren't meant to go. Where they're not welcome,” Beverley said. Thomas nodded. Of course he'd been taught that these places were meant to be explored, mapped out and examined. Back then they had seldom spoke of the wizards that disappeared. It wasn't sporting. “Where wizards are especially not welcome. She's taken him to one those places. A slip in time where London has never known humans.”

“They're in danger,” Thomas breathed out.

“Yes,” Beverley said solemnly.

 

When the other Lesley fought it was all lightning and ice, daggers of earth jutting from the ground. She moved fast, favouring her right side, bright eye glowing as lightning struck the earth from a clear blue sky. Lesley, young and untrained, fell quickly, her hands raised defensively. There was blood on her shirt, the mask slipping off her face, the hint of curled pink flesh.

Peter gaped between the two Lesleys. He was ashen, dust on his head and shoulders, but Thomas couldn't see any visible injuries. He'd insist on a full check up, of course. Who knew what impact a fairy realm had on the body – _again_.

The other Lesley was breathing deeply, leaning heavily on her right leg.

“They're back,” Thomas said, rounding on her, Peter behind him, Lesley's body slumped between them.

“Yes,” she said, smiling wryly. “You never want me to stick around,” she said.

“Wait, what?” Peter said. Thomas supposed he would have to have a detailed conversation about the other Lesley being a time traveller. Peter would probably be a bit annoyed that Thomas had not asked more questions. But Thomas had more pressing matters; saving Peter.

He hoped Peter wouldn't become _too_ interested in the idea. They had enough police work in the present without having to worry about the past or the future.

“Yes,” Thomas said.

“I'll be gone by the time the sun sets,” Lesley said, pointing to the sun arching through the sky. “But – what are you going to do about that one?” Lesley asked, toeing the body of the Lesley.

There was silence between Thomas and Peter.

Lesley laughed, silver bells, hair bright under the spring sun. “I'll leave that up to you,” she said with an amused smile. She started walking away and she didn't vanish in thin air, but the air went hazy around her form, until it hurt to look in her directly. She felt different, Thomas noted. Different from the Lesley sprawled on the cold dirt.

“What happened while I was gone?” Peter asked, staggering over to Thomas, smiling up at him.

“You've seen Doctor Who?” Thomas said.

Peter gaped at him. “You have?” He said almost incredulously, grinning slightly.

Thomas smiled. But it faded as he looked down at Lesley.

She moaned and coughed into the dirt, stirring from unconsciousness. “I have,” he said lightly, “But first we must deal with her.”


End file.
